


Disney Rules and Physics

by sailorstkwrning



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Parallel Universes, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorstkwrning/pseuds/sailorstkwrning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick Kane and his rule!63 self swap places; Jonny gets them back where they belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disney Rules and Physics

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by blue_spruce's magnificent switcheroo AU; sinsense served as alpha reader, and blue_spruce and egelantier both graciously read it over as well. Any remaining mistakes or flagrant ridiculousness are 100% mine.
> 
> Set, loosely, at the start of the 2014-2015 season; presumes Teuvo didn't get sent down to Rockford.
> 
> NB: 100% fiction, if you got here by googling yourself or someone you know: HIT THE BACK BUTTON NOW.

Kaner is late.

Jonny texts him _morning skate?? ring a bell?_ and gives him five minutes.

Then five more.

Jonny parks the car, and calls. Kaner doesn’t answer. He calls again, three times in quick succession. Still nothing.

Jonny scowls at his phone, and ignores the tendril of alarm uncurling in his stomach. He waits one more minute then gets out of the car and goes upstairs. Maybe Kaner’s in the shower, and can’t hear the phone. That’s probably it.

But he doesn’t hear the shower when he opens the door.

“Kaner!” Jonny calls out. “Pat!” Nobody answers. He tries again, louder, and walks a little further down the hallway towards the bedrooms. “Pat! Pat, are you here?”

It’s quiet, for a while, and then the door to the guest room pops open and a girl walks out. She’s wearing what Jonny can only think of as regular clothes - black jeans and a blue sweater - and she’s carrying one of Kaner’s towels and she’s frowning.

She also looks a lot like Kaner, if Kaner had long hair and slightly less aggressive eyebrows.

Jonny stares at her, all concerns for Kaner’s welfare briefly forgotten.

“Jon!” she says, her eyes widening in alarm. “What are you doing here? Did something happen to Eric?” 

“Eric?” Jon repeats, and her expression shuffles from alarmed to angry and back to alarmed again.

“My brother, blue eyes, terrible hair, fond of plaid, about this tall-“ she holds a hand a few inches above her head “ -sometimes plays on your wing? Signed a contract to play hockey with you for eight years? Sound familiar?”

Jonny stares at her some more, trying to figure out what to do first. He’s had to contend with a lot of emergencies in his time as captain of the Blackhawks, at least half of them caused by Patrick Kane, but “(possibly) deranged stranger (family member?) in a teammate’s apartment” is a new one.

“He’s not here,” Jonny says, more statement than question, because - he doesn’t know what’s happening but _something_ is super fucked up. 

The girl looks as uneasy as he feels.

“No,” she says, drawing it out a little bit. “He didn’t leave me a note, or anything, but I’m guessing Tuevo came to take him to skate, like he does every morning.”

“Oh,” Jonny says. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she snorts. “He told me last night he’d be gone before I got up, and where the fuck else would he be on a Tuesday morning?”

There’s a brief silence.

“Dude,” she says, stepping forward. “You feeling okay? Weber got you pretty good last week -”

“I’m fine,” Jonny says, quickly, and she comes to a stop; her expression suggests she isn’t convinced. “I just - sometimes Tuevo and I trade off, “ he continues, because it might buy him five minutes and is actually true. “I thought it was my turn today. Got it wrong, I guess.”

“This is what Google calendar is for, Jonny,” she says, her expression clearing. “Want some coffee before you go? And how’s your garden coming along? Eric said you had an epic potato crop this year.” 

“Sure,” he calls after her, as she walks around him towards the kitchen. 

Then he pulls out his phone, and checks his Google calendar - it is definitely his day to carpool with Kaner - before he starts making phone calls.

He tries Kaner’s phone first; he hears a muffled ringing from the master bedroom. When he follows it, he finds the bed empty, but unmade and clearly slept in, and the rest of the room as neat and tidy as ever. Whatever the girl did to Kaner, she (probably) didn’t murder him in his bed.

Then Jonny scrolls through his contacts until he finds the one labeled _Shit Has Gotten Real_ and presses the call button.

Erica picks up on the third ring.

“Jonny?” she says, sounding alarmed.

“Hi, “ he says. He wishes he could follow it with _Pat’s fine_ , but he can’t, yet. “Do you, um - “ he pauses, takes a breath. “Do you have a cousin named Patricia? With a brother named Eric?”

There’s a very long silence.

“Erica?” Jonny says.

“Holy _shit_ ,” she says. “Fuck _me_.”

Jonny sits down on Pat’s bed. He can smell the coffee from here, and it’s soothing.

“It’s not - it’s not a cousin,” Erica says. Her voice sounds shaky. “It’s - ” she breaks off with a wobbly breath.

“It’s _what?_ ” Jonny says, switching to his captain voice. “What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s Pat,” Erica says. “ _A_ Pat.” Jonny blinks at the article; hears her take a deep breath. “I didn’t think it could happen again.”

“Didn’t think _what_ could happen again?” Jonny asks, because what the _fuck_ , “a Pat” and has Pat turned into a girl before and no-one told him?

“She came through once before,” Erica says, her voice growing steadier. “When I was really little. I - I wished for a _big_ sister. And she showed up.”

“Showed up from _where?_ ” Jonny asks. He’s starting to wonder if maybe he’s dreaming, because none of this makes any sense.

“Her - world. Her universe,” Erica says, with a slightly hysterical giggle. “Oh man she was so mad. Her brother - her Eric - had a big game and she thought she was going to miss it because I wanted to play dolls with her in the middle of the night.”

Jonny pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it for a minute. _Her Eric?_

“ - sucked at dolls, by the way,” Erica is saying, when he puts it back. “She about destroyed my Cabbage Patch kid trying to comb its hair. And she told me my Barbies were -”

“Okay,” Jonny said, cutting her off. “How did you send her back?”

“I’m not sure,” Erica says. “We had a fight - an argument - about which was better, sisters or brothers, and then we went back to bed. I fell asleep wishing he was back and when I got up he was in the kitchen eating Frosted Flakes like usual. I thought I had dreamed it.”

There’s another long silence. Jonny stares at his knees, feeling faintly ill: assuming he’s not hallucinating this whole thing, he thinks he knows what’s happened, now, and it’s all his fault, this time.

Specifically, it’s the ten minutes he’d spent the day before, puttering around his roof garden, tending his cabbages while Kaner made them dinner and danced around the kitchen. It had been really - pleasant. He might, possibly, have wished he could do it every day. Most crucially, it’s the moment when he glanced up to see Kaner walking towards him, hair shining in the late autumn light, grinning broadly and carrying their appetizers, and had definitely had a sudden fierce pang of wistful longing for a Kaner he could kiss. And date. A _female_ Kaner. 

Then Kaner had mocked his scrubby carrots and which led to an argument and -

“Jonny,” Erica says, snapping him out of his reverie. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Nothing,” he says, automatically, and Erica huffs in his ear.

“Well, _somebody_ wished for him to be a girl,” she says. “And it wasn’t me this time. So you are going to have to find that person and make them take it back-”

“Okay,” Jonny says, because he’s pretty sure he’s found the person already and he definitely takes it back. 

He mostly takes it back. He didn’t mean for _this_ to happen, that is for sure.

“Do you want me to talk to her while you figure out how to fix it?” Erica asks, her tone turning brisk. Jonny feels both guilty and grateful for her confidence in his abilities.

“Sure,” he says, though he’s not exactly sure how he is going to fix it. What is he supposed to do, just say _Never mind, give me back my regular Kaner_ out loud and hope it works? “Okay. Hold on, she’s in the kitchen.”

“If she breaks his coffee maker he’s going to be pissed,” Erica mutters, and Jonny manages a laugh.

When he gets to the kitchen, the girl - Pat, Jonny reminds himself - is drinking coffee from the Dallas Stars mug Segs had sent up, and frowning. 

“You didn’t see my purse by the door when you came in, did you?” she asks.

“No,” Jonny says. “Um.” He pauses, and holds out his phone. “There’s, ah, someone you need to talk to.”

She arches both her eyebrows - they’re thin and delicate and Jonny has a sudden bizarre longing for Pat’s normal unruly caterpillar-like disasters - puts the mug down and takes the phone.

“Hello?” she says, and Jonny can tell when Erica starts talking, because Pat’s expression shifts from puzzled but open to a mixture of frightened and furious that he’s never seen on his Pat’s face before but recognizes just the same.

“What the fuck,” Pat says, both into the phone and to Jonny. “Who is this?”

Jonny stays quiet, and lets Erica do the talking.

“No, for real, fuck you,” Pat says, pushing away from the counter, her voice high and tight. “This isn’t funny, asshole.”

Jonny holds still while she paces around the kitchen island and into the hallway, and back again, Pat’s wallet clutched in her hand. She opens it and pulls out his ID; her hands are shaking, and Jonny feels awful. He wonders if his Pat is in her world, or - floating in the ether somewhere? Wherever he is, Jonny hopes he’s super pissed off, rather than terrified.

“This is a good fake,” she says, pulling Jonny’s attention back to the problem at hand. He’s not sure who she’s talking to, him or Erica. “Like, really good. Tell Sharpy that was a good call, using an old picture of Dad. And, like, hah hah you got me, very funny, jackass.”

“It’s not a fake,” Jonny says, and he doesn’t know what Erica’s comment is, but it makes Pat draw herself up and purse her lips. 

Then she walks out of the kitchen and into the living room, stopping first by the window, and then by each and every picture of Pat in the room. There are a lot, Jonny realizes, watching her. Most of them are of Pat and his family, but there’s a few of him on the ice - some with the Hawks, some with Team USA. There’s even one of him and Jonny together, from when they won their second Cup.

“Okay,” Pat says, and she sounds wobbly in a way that is horribly familiar. “Okay, I believe you.” She pauses. “Yeah, okay, bye, I’ll tell him to call you when he’s fixed it.”

Jonny clears his throat and steps into the living room, though he has no idea what to say. 

“God damn it,” Pat says, and he can tell she’s crying.

“I’m sorry,” Jonny says, because he is, and that at least makes her stop sniffling and glare at him.

“I had shit to do today,” she says, scrubbing at her face with her free hand. “I had plans for this week. Fuck. Jack is playing his first game with the Sabres on Thursday and I promised him I’d be there.”

“Jack?” Jonny repeats, curiosity edging past guilt for a minute, and he takes a couple of steps forward. 

He’s still not really sure what he intends to do. If it was his Pat who was crying, he’d hug him, but it isn’t.

“My baby brother,” Pat says, sitting down on the arm of the couch. “The middle one - Jesse - plays for the Islanders. Thanksgiving is awkward, sometimes.”

“You’re like the Staals,” Jonny said, a little stunned.

“The who?” Pat said, her brow crinkling. “Oh, the figure skaters? Do they play hockey here?”

“What?” Jonny says, trying to imagine Marc Staal in spandex tights and failing.

“The Staal sisters,” Pat says, the beginnings of a grin appearing on her face. “Erica, Hannah, Jordan and Natalie. They tore it up at Worlds this year. Hannah won gold by herself and Natalie took silver in pairs with that dude - Jeff Skinner, I think was his name.”

“And the Sedins?” Jonny asks, because this is like looking through at a funhouse mirror: a little scary, a little fascinating. “Are they girls too?”

“Henrietta is,” Pat says, her expression turning wry as she stands up and straightens her sweater. “Anyway, you should get to skate.”

“But -” Jonny begins, because - how is _that_ going to help?

“You have a game tonight,” she says. “Or - Eric does. Did.”

“Does,” Jonny says. “I mean, yes, I - we - have a game tonight, but -”

“Well, then, let’s not fuck that up, too,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Log me in to his computer and I’ll do some research while you’re out.”

Jonny stares at her, because she sounds so much like his Pat, prioritizing when they solve a problem together, and also because at the moment he can’t even contemplate playing. Or, for that matter, how he’s going to explain what’s happened without getting himself committed.

“You can tell me his password, or I can try and guess,” she says, her tone turning sharp.

Jonny hesitates for another minute. He has no idea what his Pat has on his laptop and handing it over to a stranger seems like a terrible idea.

“I promise I won’t look at his porn,” she snaps. “Or anything else. Google only.”

Jonny sighs, goes to get the machine, and leaves her to it.

**

“Kaner’s got food poisoning,” Jonny says, hoping he doesn’t sound as rattled as he feels. “I got him some meds, he’s going to try and sleep it off.”

Q looks suspicious and annoyed, and the trainers make noises about calling Pat but Jonny manages to convince all of them that it’s both mild enough for them not to bother and also serious enough for Pat to miss skate. It is not his finest moment as a captain, he’s pretty sure. 

Skating does help, though. The cold air of the rink is familiar and comforting and _normal_ , and the burn in his muscles helps clear his head so he can think.

**

When he gets back to Pat’s, Pat - other Pat - is still there.

“We should make out,” she says, before he’s even shut the door behind him. 

“What?” Jonny says, even though that was going to be his suggestion, too, on the grounds that kissing was the least horrifying method suggested by the results of the Google search he’d conducted on his phone after skate.

“Disney rules,” she snaps, her eyes narrowing. “True love’s kiss solves all problems, and whatever.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” Jonny splutters, stepping the rest of the way inside and closing the door. “I met you _this morning -_ “

“Look,” she says. “Last time this happened it was because Erica wished for her brother to be a girl. I don’t know who did it this time -”

“I did,” Jonny blurts out, to his own horror. Though he does feel a little better for having confessed. “But only for a minute.”

“ _Really,_ ” she says, and Jonny can feel himself flushing. 

“Yes,” Jonny mutters, and clenches his teeth so he doesn’t make any more embarrassing confessions.

“I see,” Pat says, and Jonny has the distinct feeling she’s trying not to laugh at him. “So I guess it’s kind of your fault. But not - completely.”

“What?” Jonny says, and she presses her hands to her eyes briefly.

“My Jonny is like my fourth brother. But last year during the Cup parade we may or may not have a little bit too much champagne and . . . “ she trails off, shrugging one shoulder.

Jonny opens his mouth and closes it again, half stuck on _Cup parade_ (did they win a third one, or just the second one, at a different time?), half a little horrified by his other self, because if he had kissed one of Pat’s sisters, Cup or no Cup, he’d be dead.

“Was it - okay?” is what he finally goes with, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“We were very drunk and very happy and you were - he was - kissing everyone who walked by you - him,” she says, though her cheeks are flushing pink. “I mean you - he - even tried to slip Duncs some tongue -”

“I did _not,_ ” Jonny says, pretty sure she’s fucking with him now, though deep down, he’ll believe he did. Or some version of him did.

“It was fine,” she says. “Not too slobbery or anything. You - he - didn’t grab my ass and I definitely didn’t try and climb you - him like a tree, either. And I’m pretty sure I never wished for a Jonny that liked me that way because I’m almost certain I don’t ever want to do it again because that would be a _terrible idea._ ”

She’s definitely blushing now. 

“Oh my god,” he mutters. “Did - Eric - did anyone -”

“Eric was so busy sticking his tongue down Henrietta Sedin’s throat he almost fell off the truck,” she says. “And you - he tried to lick Duncs’ tonsils immediately afterwards so -”

“Okay,” Jonny says, because he doesn’t need to hear any more about _that_ , though he’s sure the other version of him certainly did. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Fine,” she mutters. “Come here.”

Jonny crosses to her, but when he gets close he’s suddenly shy. She looks familiar - he recognizes the determined look in her eye from every time they’ve had to get one more goal, or push past penalties, or just find a Starbucks before the bus leaves- but he doesn’t _know_ her, not really.

“Come on,” she says, and grabs at his arms pulling him close. Her hands are bigger than he expected, for how tiny the rest of her is, and sturdy, like his Pat’s. Even her callouses feel like his.

“You play hockey too?” he asks, and promptly feels like a complete idiot.

“Field hockey,” she says, looping her arms around his neck. “Top scorer at Cornell for four years.” 

Then she kisses him.

It’s awful.

She pulls back first, squints at him, then wriggles closer and tries again. She runs her fingernails gently over the back of his neck, and he opens his mouth, but that does not improve matters at all. She’s soft in all the right places, she smells delicious, and she’s kissing him like it’s a double dog dare, which he normally appreciates in a woman. But she isn’t what he wants. She isn’t _Pat._

He pulls back, and she sighs.

“I take it that was as terrible for you as it was for me,” she says, tilting her head back to look him in the eye.

“I-” he starts. “I’m sorry -”

“I’m not,” she says, rubbing a hand across her mouth. “Dating across universes would suck. And you taste wrong.”

“Sorry,” he says, again, because he ate lunch with the team and he really should have offered to brush his teeth before they got started.

“It’s all right,” she says, and hugs him. 

She’s got a strong grip, and her head hits him right where Pat’s does, usually, and Jonny thinks he might cry.

“Now what do we do?” he mumbles into her shoulder. “Just - wait? How do we know if it worked?”

“Well, last time, after I failed at dolls, Erica and I just want back to our own beds to sulk,” she says. “And the next time I woke up I was home. So - probably we should nap,” she says, rubbing his back briefly before pulling away again. “But first I want some lunch.”

“I ate,” Jonny says. “What do you want? We can order - he has menus in -”

“- the drawer under the sink,” she finishes, her mouth twisting into a brief smile. “The same place we all keep them. I found one for a diner, but really, anywhere that will send me a cheeseburger and fries is fine.”

“Diner it is,” Jonny says, and hands her his phone.

**

Jonny stays up with her, drinks a Gatorade and tries to make conversation, while she demolishes her burger and a plate of disco fries - Jonny is vaguely jealous on his Pat’s behalf - and eats some of Pat’s ice cream. 

“I’ll take the guest room,” she says, when she’s finished. 

“Okay,” Jonny says, and goes to Pat’s room.

Being in Pat’s bed feels very strange; somehow, Jonny manages to fall asleep anyway.

**

Jonny wakes up because someone is poking him in the shoulder. When he opens his eyes, Pat - his Pat - is sitting next to him on the bed. Jonny sits up so quickly he almost knocks both of them on the floor and pulls Pat into a hug.

Pat makes a surprised noise, but doesn’t fight him. Jonny takes a ragged breath, and another. 

“Hey,” Pat says, a little muffled by Jonny’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Jonny asks, pulling back to get a better look at him.

Patrick arches one gloriously awful bushy eyebrow and Jonny thinks he might cry for the second time that day. Then he lets go of him.

“Dude, what the hell _happened?_ ” Pat says. “Also, don’t ever let me paint my guest room pink.”

Jonny’s phone alarm chimes, and he grabs it to turn it off. “I’ll tell you on the way to the game.”

**

“So how did you get me back?” Pat asks, as Jonny pulls into his regular parking spot under the UC.

“I kissed her,” Jonny says.

Pat is silent; when Jonny looks up at him, his expression is somewhere between horrified, amused, and impressed, like the time Jonny told him the story about him and TJ getting busted for peeing in the elevator in North Dakota.

“It was her idea!” Jonny says, and he can feel his face get hot. “She said - Disney rules - but it was _awful._ ”

“How so?” Pat asks. “Eric showed me a picture, she’s hot. Did she use too much tongue? Chew your face off?”

“ _No,_ ” Jonny says. “She was a very good kisser. She just wasn’t -” he stops, barely, before he says _you._

“Wasn’t what?” Pat prods, and Jonny resists the urge to bang his head on the steering wheel. 

“My true love,” Jonny says, as repressively as possible, and turns the car off.

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Pat says, settling back in his seat. “Because the other you was pretty into her.”

“I was - I mean, he was?” Jonny asks, reaching for his seatbelt. Maybe other-him _hadn’t_ been just drunk, at the Cup parade.

“I’m lucky I’m not a smoking smear on the ice right now,” Pat says. “I’ve fucked up, but you’ve never spent a whole practice glaring at me like you wanted to set me on fire before.”

“Sorry,” Jonny says, automatically, and Pat makes an amused noise.

“It’s okay, you’ve also never wanted to take me to a fancy French restaurant for dinner before, either,” Pat says. “He had reservations at Les Nomades for tonight. He was going to surprise her.”

“I’d take you to Les Nomades,” Jonny says, because he would, he totally would. “If you wanted to go. I thought you didn’t like French food.”

“I’d eat dinner with you anywhere,” Pat says. “Even if it involves your weird deformed carrots and composting from the table.”

“They are not deformed,” Jonny snaps, and Patrick laughs at him, and Jonny - Jonny wants give him a noogie and kiss him, possibly in that order.

“Jonny,” Pat says, his tone softening. “Promise to not punch me in the face?”

“What?” Jonny says, and Pat edges closer. “Yes, I mean, why would I -”

“C’mere,” Pat says, and kisses him.

It’s good.

It’s weird, but it’s good. 

It also isn’t long enough; Pat pulls back before they can really get anywhere. Jonny grabs at his shoulder to pull him back and Pat comes easily, laughing a little. 

The second time, while still chaste - Jonny is painfully aware they are doing whatever this is nearly in public - is even better.

Jonny pulls back first, and just looks at Pat, vaguely aware that his mouth is hanging open and he probably looks ridiculous.

“How - “ Jonny begins, and Pat gives him a slow grin.

“Disney rules,” Pat says. “And physics. Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction.”

Jonny squeezes his eyes shut briefly; when he opens them, he still doesn’t understand.

“You wished for a girl-me, and when you kissed her, she wasn’t your true love,” Pat says, like he’s an explaining an especially difficult play. “So that swapped us back. But if she isn’t your true love, I probably had to be. But I wouldn’t know for sure until I kissed you.”

“But -” Jonny tries, because his world is tilted and he’s not sure what to do. Pat squeezes his hand.

“We’ll talk about it after we beat the Ducks, okay?” he says, and Jonny nods. 

Pat grins, leans over and kisses him again, then gets out of the car. Jonny follows him, with a grin he can’t shake even through several tedious pre-game interviews.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr, too!](http://sailorstkwrning.tumblr.com/)


End file.
